let me give you this world you've always dreamed of
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: It takes less than two weeks of watching Chat Noir mooning over Ladybug and of seeing Marinette sigh whenever Adrien passed by for Alya to decide she should take the matter into her own hands (with a little help from Nino, of course) and try to set up her best friend with the boy she likes. Too bad Fate has other plans. Part 3 of the Alya knows series.
**let me give you this world you've always dreamed of**

It's approximately two weeks, three akuma attacks and twenty-five instances of Marinette sighing Adrien's name as he passes by later that Alya realizes that she really has to do something about it, because the situation is becoming even more ridiculous than it already was.

Chat Noir looks more and more dejected on what little footage of him and Ladybug she can get her hand son whenever Ladybug's back is turned, Marinette seems to be losing hope that Adrien will ever agree to take her out on a romantic date, and Alya could swear that she saw Adrien doodle Ladybug's name circled by tiny hearts in his notebook last week.

As she said, ridiculous.

Plus, now that she and Nino are dating, she's started feeling guilty that her friend doesn't have this for herself. Marinette is far too nice to ever say anything, but Alya can see that it pains her to listen to Alya relating how her and Nino's latest date has gone.

It's in the way the glimmer in her eyes is just a little less bright than it usually is, and in the way her smile is just a tad too tight to be completely natural.

It takes all Alya has not to simply blurt out the truth in front of her friends and tie them together until they finally admit that they like each other (though she does keep that plan in mind as a last resort, because when Marinette is involved you can never know how far you'll have to go to make her see what she refuses to believe).

Unfortunately, since she can't just tell them everything yet – there's this issue of them not believing her, and Alya's honestly afraid that something might go wrong and ruin her friendship with Marinette, which just isn't an option – she has to resort to subtle hints and clues, and for all that her two classmates make amazing superheroes, they really are terrible at seeing anything that's not entirely obvious.

They'd make terrible detectives, which is why, in the rare moments when Alya allows herself to poke fun at her heroes, she's so glad most akumatized villains wear the token that gives them their power in plain sight.

It's also kind of great though, since it means that Marinette probably won't suspect that Alya knows anything unless Alya spells it out for her.

Of course, it's less great when Alya has dropped her tenth casual hint about Chat Noir's secret identity, age and _'oh, don't you think he looks just like Adrien with a different haircut?'_ and her friend has done nothing other than blush while saying Adrien's name and deny everything.

She's even denying that Chat loves Ladybug, which Alya would have thought impossible if she hadn't heard from Nino that Adrien was convinced Marinette either hated him or was afraid of him, when about ninety-five percent of the population of Paris sees it too.

Alya knows this because she started a poll on the ladyblog and it went viral not two hours later. She may or may not have started it because she wanted to make sure she wasn't imagining things – there was a fairly active Ladynoir community on the internet, but since people could and would ship anything there it hadn't meant much.

Alya's even not so secretly rooting for Chat to finally make a move on Ladybug, and she makes sure to mention this fact out loud whenever Adrien and Marinette are in the vicinity. She doesn't think he will, but he's surprised her before, and it would solve all of her problems. And all of theirs, too.

Unfortunately, all that seems to happen so far is that Marinette grows more clumsy when she says ' _Chat Noir'_ (it'd be funny if it wasn't a sign that her plan was hopeless) and Adrien turns red and starts stuttering whenever he hears ' _Ladynoir'_.

There are also only so many times she can mention how great of a couple Chat Noir and Ladybug would make to Marinette before her friend gets angry (Alya knows this from experience, because she could swear she can still hear her ears ringing from Marinette's rant about Ladybug's freedom to love whomever she wanted, and that Chat Noir was her partner/best friend, and deserved better than to be paired off with Ladybug just because they worked together) or decides to change the subject.

In the end, that's why she decides to recruit Nino into this small operation. They've already talked about this, and while Nino doesn't know about the Ladynoir part of the equation, he agrees that Marinette and Adrien would make a cute couple.

"Adrien's pining over someone and he won't tell me who – he just says it's never going to happen – so maybe Marinette is just the person he needs to get over whoever that girl is," Nino shrugs. "Besides, Marinette clearly likes him, and she's a nice girl. They could be good together. But," he insists, "I'm not going to make Adrien do anything he doesn't actually want to."

"Trust me, this is only about making him realize that he wants this."

"I suppose at the very least it'd help with Marinette's hopeless clumsiness whenever Adrien walks in the room," he jokes with a teasing smirk. "Besides, how hard can this be?"

 _(famous last words)_

 **.x.**

As it turns out, pretty hard. They decide that Nino will focus on getting Adrien to see Marinette as a potential date while Alya works on building her friend's self-confidence – secretly she also tries to get Marinette to see Chat Noir as a potential boyfriend, because surely any combination of her friends' weird love square is better than this sort of mutual pining they have right now – and together they try to arrange scenarios for them to spend time together.

Both of them thought getting Marinette and Adrien in a room together and get them to talk, or do anything together, would be the hardest part, but as it turns out, it's the easiest.

All it takes is saying they should hang out – the four of them, of course – and then ditch them, either by pretending to go do 'couple stuff', which most of the time only consisted in spying on their two friends through binoculars Nino had borrowed from his father, though those moments were always fun and oddly intimate; or by simply not going.

Or well, obviously not going. Alya drags Nino to a second-hand shop so that they can find a disguise to follow their friends into the cinema and see if anything happens (spoilers: nothing does, even when they put them in front of the scariest movie or the most romantic one) and there's that one time they have to finish their ice-creams from under their tables so they won't be seen.

The only positive aspect from those fiascos is that Adrien and Marinette seem to become better friend, and Marinette is no longer so tied-tongue in front of her crush, though she still blushes an awful lot and sometimes stares off into space when she is him coming.

"This is going nowhere," Nino confesses to Alya one day as they lounge about in her room. "It's like he goes deaf whenever I mention the word _date_ , and all I get whenever I try to get him to tell me which girls he likes the most in our class are non-committal grunts. I know he likes Marinette though, I can see it! Ugh, it's driving me mad!"

Alya's campaign to get Marinette to see Chat Noir as a potential love interest is equally hopeless, though she knows her best friend likes him, even if Marinette will probably never admit it to anyone but herself , but since she can't exactly say that, she just makes a sigh of agreement.

"I think we need to up our game," she finally says, sitting up on the bed she had been previously been half-lying on.

"What do you mean?" Nino asks, curious. She can see he's hooked though. Somewhere in the past couple of weeks, he's gotten addicted to this game, and now he too wants to see their two best friends get together, or as Nino so eloquently put it that one time 'get their head out of their asses and their shit together'.

"I mean," and here Alya feels as though she's been struck by some divine revelation, "that we should go with your very first idea and simply lock them in a room together until they confess their feelings. After all, it worked for us."

"That is true… But what happened to us was mostly luck – how do you plan on recreating that?"

"Don't worry, I have a plan…"

 **.x.**

Alya's plan was rather simple: get Adrien and Marinette to come to one of the unused classrooms at the school and lock them there.

"Of course," she adds, "we'll have put food and drinks there, as well as anything they might need."

"Won't they worry though?"

"Not if we leave them a message explaining that we'll come free them when they text us to say they've confessed to their feelings. Then they'd know what they have to do," Alya explains, rubbing her hands together in satisfaction. "We should also tell the adults that they're sick, just in case they wonder where they are," she muses.

"I see you've really thought of everything," Nino teases with a smile. They share a look full of shared secrets, and what they do for the next hour has nothing to do with setting their friends up.

 **.x.**

The plan goes off without a hitch. Marinette and Adrien are both locked in the room, and Nino and Alya leave them there, hopeful that their friends will be out of there by lunchtime.

They show up for class fifteen minutes late, disheveled and out of breath, and Marinette confesses to Alya that someone locked her and Adrien in that unused classroom on the second floor.

She's certain it was Chloe, though why her nemesis would have locked her away with the boy they both like is beyond her, but Alya manages to dissuade her.

"If not her, then who?" Marinette asks, and Alya's about to tell her when her phone vibrates with a text from Nino telling her to lie.

"I have no idea," Alya shrugs, her heart feeling heavy in her chest, "but I don't think they meant you harm. After all, you were locked up with Adrien. Maybe they just wanted to give you two a chance to be alone?"

Marinette blushes, but she looks pensive, which Alya takes as a win.

"Anyway, how did you escape from the room if it was closed?"

Marinette perks up. "Oh, that was easy. We just went through the windows. It took us some time to figure out that they weren't locked, but once we had piled up a few desks, it was pretty simple."

Clearly Adrien has been telling the same story to Nino, because her boyfriend turns around and sends her a commiserating look.

The matter is put on hold though, as their Physic teacher clears her throat and gestures at them to start working.

Later, her phone vibrates from another text.

It's Nino again.

'Did we actually leave them the message? Because I thought we had agreed to put it in plain sight, but Adrien swears he has no clue as to who could have done this.'

With a feeling of despair growing stronger by the second, Alya rummages through her pockets, and then her bag, only to find the piece of paper on which they had written their short explanation tucked about between two of her school books, exactly where she had put it that morning.

She feels like banging her head against her table until she forgets all about this.

'It was still in my bag,' she texts bag with sad and angry emojis, 'I can't believe it.'

'Better luck next time?' He sends back immediately, with a smiley face and a kiss.

'Better luck next time,' she agrees.

And just like that, Alya feels like smiling again.

They do have all the time in the world after all, even if the pining is annoying.

 **.x.**

In the end though, it's nothing that Alya does that leads to the Reveal (yes, Reveal with a capital R, because with everything they went through to get there, Alya feels it deserves some mark of its importance), but rather it happens through a complete accident.

Honestly, Alya doesn't even know why she's surprised or thought it'd go any other way, what with the way these things have been happening so far.

Still, as satisfying as it is to see her friends finally happy and to know that this charade can finally end, it's equally as frustrating to know that all of her carefully-laid plans ended up being completely useless.

 _(it's also kind of annoying to realize that she'd have to thank Hawkmoth for this now if she ever met him – not that she probably wouldn't have other things to do if that ever happened, like 'run', but it's the thought that counts)_

Thankfully, Alya manages to get footage of the event – she'll never be able to share it with anyone not already in the know of course, but that's fine with her. The video will make excellent blackmail material if she ever needs Marinette to do something for her, and she fully intends to hold this over her friend's head whenever Alya needs her to admit that she should pay attention to the evidence brought forward by her best friend, because sometimes Alya does know better.

 _(and what kind of friend would she be if she didn't take all the chances she could get to remind Marinette and Adrien that they once got caught in a love square with only two people?)_

Anyway, the actual Reveal goes something like this…

 **.x.**

Alya's actually relaxing at Marinette's place when it happens.

In retrospect, they were definitely due another akuma attack soon – the last one had happened weeks ago and Paris had been enjoying a much needed respite since then (her friend had been too, because Alya had been terribly relieved to see Marinette finally stop coming to class with barely more energy than a zombie) – and Alya really should have known better than to expect it to last any longer.

The day, a nice Sunday afternoon where they had finally finished all their homework and caught up on every subject they had to catch up for, had been that eery kind of quiet before the storm arrives too, which should have been clue number two.

Alya's sprawled on Marinette's bed while her friend presents her with her next fashion project – Marinette's into summer dresses right now, and some of her ideas look brilliant – when the screaming starts.

Alya can see her friend trying to come up with an excuse to slip away, and rolling her eyes, she grabs her cellphone and moves to go film this attack.

"You should stay inside, Marinette," Alya says half-heartedly, because she knows that the moment she's out of sight her friend will do her weird transformation thing, but not saying so would probably be out of character for her.

Marinette nods, already distracted, and makes her promise to stay as safe as she can – which Alya always does, she's not the one actually going after the villain after all.

 _(honestly, it hurts a little that her friend has gotten so good at lying to Alya's face, and that if it weren't for so many incidents out of her control, Alya might never have found the truth)_

The street by Marinette's house, so full of life just moments ago, is eerily silent by the time Alya gets there. That's not the weirdest part though – and trust her when she says it's weird, because after this last year Alya's developed a whole new definition of weird.

The weirdest part is that everyone is still there, only, they're not exactly themselves anymore.

They appear to have been turned into some kind of dessert, and every one's different too. There's a lady not ten meters away half melting under the sun because she's made of chocolate, and she's still pushing a stroller, only that stroller appears to be made of gingerbread, and the kid inside looks like an actual brioche.

They all look like terribly appetizing statues, and Alya has to spare a thought to wonder if they're actually still aware in there. It doesn't look like it, but animated human-sized desserts would hardly be the worst thing she's seen, though it might come close.

She's too weirded out by that phenomenon to focus on it for long though, so she swipes her camera over her surroundings as she gazes at everything else.

The streets are covered in white powder too, and its shine is just a little too glossy to be actual snow, which was Alya's first thought. She reaches down and stabs a finger in a little pile of the stuff, and sure enough it taste just like powdered sugar.

She's reporting her findings to her camera when Ladybug swings by, yelling at her to stay safe.

Alya only grips her phone more tightly and starts running after her – after all, Ladybug goes where the action is (and Alya would kill to know how she always manages to locate it so efficiently, because reporting on Paris' heroes would be so much easier if she could manage to replicate this ability and apply it to find them), and where the action is taking place is always where Alya wants to be.

She races through the streets and tries not to lose Ladybug's trail – the heroine's red and black clad form moves fast, flying from one building to another – while also attempting not to fall on her face (who knew powdered sugar could be so slippery?).

Holding her phone in a way that still allows her to film what's happening as she runs is pretty hard, but Alya's had a lot of practice, so much so that she's in fact a champion at it by now. Honestly, she'd invest in something better if she could and if she wasn't so afraid the villain of the week would break it, but alas that's not to be.

Fortunately, she doesn't have to run for long. Not that she couldn't, Alya's in great shape, but she'd really rather not if she could help it.

The fight is happening only a couple of blocks away from Marinette's place – Alya supposes that whoever has been akumatized this time hasn't had a lot of time to move away from there – and it's in full swing by the time Alya finds a bush to hide behind as she films everything.

 _(the bush has been hit by one of the villain's shots of what looks like freshly baked biscuits and is now apparently entirely made of some kind of green crystallized sugar, but it's the perfect hiding spot)_

The villain – a rather tall and heavy man dressed entirely in white except for a dark grey apron and flaming red hair (it's literally flaming too, which Alya thinks should be uncomfortable but actually looks kind of cool) who's apparently named himself The Baker – is holding a rolling pin he uses to deflect Ladybug and Chat Noir's attacks in one hand as he throws baked goods at them.

He's also slowly being backed into a corner, which is conveniently close enough to Alya's bush that she knows she'll have everyone's voices on her phone.

She has, of course, always been able to hear them, since Chat Noir and Ladybug seem to enjoy communicating by yelling across whatever place they're fighting in, and The Baker's voice appears to be naturally loud, but her phone isn't always that great at picking out noise.

The trio moving closer also leads to Alya getting a closer look of The Baker's face, and there's something weirdly familiar about it that even the butterfly-like make-up all akumatized villains seem to wear can't hide completely.

They pass right in front her bush too – well, the Baker kind of flies by after he's hit by one of Ladybug's attacks, and the two heroes run after him – and her friends back the villain against the giant statue, now entirely made of chocolate, that stands in the middle of the plaza they're in.

Alya can feel that the fight is drawing to a close now. Either Chat Noir or Ladybug will manage to get their hands on The Baker's rolling pin before he can realize that he's essentially walked into a trap, or Ladybug will do her 'thing' and call on her lucky charm, but either way the result will be the same: everything will be back to normal.

Of course, it is then, when the true danger seems to have passed, that something happens.

 _(it usually works this way, Alya's noticed)_

The Baker _moves_ , and the feeling of familiarity is multiplied by ten folds as something just clicks in Alya's head.

There's something strikingly familiar about the way he holds himself – it's been bugging her since the beginning of the fight – and it seems she's not the only one to think so.

Ladybug and Chat Noir both speak at the same time, surprise clear in their body language, and _of course_ this would happen this way.

"Dad?!" Marinette exclaims just as Chat Noir uncharacteristically stutters out "Mr. Dupain?".

Everything seems to stop as the two heroes struggle to process what's just happened.

Alya can see the cogs turning in her two friends' heads: to Adrien, it would be obvious that Ladybug is Marinette, but to her best friend, Chat Noir's identity wouldn't be quite as obvious. All she has to go one is that her partner knew her father, and Alya can see that it is killing her not to ask how.

"I mean Mr. Dupain," Marinette repeats loudly, in a useless attempt to salvage the situation. "Yes, Mr. Dupain, not 'Dad', because that would be absolutely ridiculous," she adds quickly, with a fake cheery voice that Alya knows means her friend is uncomfortable or lying, or both.

Part of her thinks that she should shut down her camera now – after all, this is a secret she's been fighting to keep ever since she figured it out – but the rest of her is too excited to actually be a witness to the scene she's been trying to orchestrate for the last few weeks.

Besides, after all the trouble she went through for them, all the plans that they've now rendered useless (hopefully), she at least deserves to keep this video.

Even from where she is, and with the mask Chat Noir's wearing, Alya can tell that he's not convinced in the slightest at Marinette's attempt to take back her words. And really, who would have been? For just a moment, Ladybug's self-confidence had bled over to Marinette's awkwardness, and as short as that moment may have been, it had been enough.

Alya sees Chat Noir open his mouth to say something – to tell Ladybug who he is, she hopes – but she'll never know what it was, because The Baker chooses that moment to attack again, thinking his two foes distracted.

And yes, they are, but Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't Paris' heroes for nothing. They can handle a little distraction, even one such as this one.

The fight is over in an instant. The earlier revelation seems to have been forgotten as the two teens move as one to neutralize the threat. It is kind of weird to know that the two of them are fighting against Marinette's father (and how must it feel for her friend, to know that, Alya wonders), but it's hardly the first time they fight against someone they know (one of the 'perks' about sharing classes with Chloe Bourgeois).

The fight had already been nearly over before, but now Ladybug throws her yoyo at The Baker's rolling pin and reels it in while Chat Noir keeps the man busy, and five minutes later the rolling pin is broken in two, the akuma is freed and cleansed, and Paris is going back to normal.

Still from behind her bush – now back to its proper state – Alya watches as Tom turn back to his normal self and Ladybug reassures him that the threat has passed. It doesn't take much for him to go on his way back to the bakery, and finally, Chat Noir and Ladybug are alone.

Well, Alya's still there, but she's not leaving for anything in this world – of course, she'll turn away if _anything_ actually starts to, you know, happen – and by some miracle there are no other witnesses and neither of the two heroes have used their miraculous in a way that means they're running out of time and would have an excuse to leave.

Alya half-registers that her phone is still filming everything, but her eyes are once again riveted on her two friends, standing still face to face.

In the end, Marinette is the one who makes the first move – it's both surprising and in character for her, and it perfectly demonstrates one of the many reasons why Alya loves her best friend so much – though it's not a move Alya can really appreciate.

Indeed, her friend, in true martyr fashion, has decided that she could only be a hero if no one knows who she is. Sure, Alya gets that there are risks, many of them she possibly can't quite grasp, and maybe not sharing her secret identity with every friend she has is a good idea (especially considering just how many friends Marinette has), but surely an exception can be made for her partner.

After all, no one can reasonably argue that Chat Noir can't handle himself, and it's not like knowing his partner's secret identity could put him in more trouble than hiding his own secrets ever could.

At least that's what Alya's always thought. Apparently, her best friend believes otherwise. Thankfully, Adrien, like Alya herself, seems to have had enough of this charade.

"Can you please forget this ever happened?" Ladybug asks, fidgeting in a way that is so typically Marinette it's a wonder no one else who knows her has found her secret.

For a moment, Alya actually believes he will agree. She feels anxious and excited, and yes, it's exactly the way she feels when something _big_ happens in her favorite movies, the ones that have you hanging at the edge of your seat.

She can see the moment he decides not to though. His posture tightens, his back straightened and his mouth set in a determined line.

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I don't want to. Marinette," he adds, and his voice turns so soft that Alya has to avert her eyes (this suddenly feels too private for her to be there – her friends seem to have the situation under control. Maybe she should just leave them to it?), "what do you think would change if I knew who you were under the mask?"

Reluctantly, Alya shuts down her camera. She doesn't really want to, but it feels wrong enough to just witness what's happening – never mind that she's been trying to get this moment to come true for quite some time. Besides, she can tease her friends just as well by telling them what she saw, and any future children of theirs would have to settle for stories instead of video proof.

 _(Alya believes that in this situation, fiction might exceptionally be even better than the truth too)_

"I'm not afraid," Marinette refutes sternly , even as she takes a step back.

"Never said you were, my Lady," Chat Noir quips with a half-bow, his trademark smirk back on his lips, "never said you were."

"But that's just it – don't you see? If I am, if you know… I'm not your Lady, Chat Noir. I'm not this great person you think I am, not without this," Marinette visibly struggles to explain, gesturing at her costume.

Even with her vision impaired by the leaves she's still hiding behind, Alya can see how much admitting this pains her Marinette. She feels the urge to go there and hug the life out of her friend, but to do so would reveal her position and possibly ruin everything.

Even so, it's hard to resist, and she resolves to hug Marinette the next time she sees her.

It isn't right, for her friend to look so down, especially when she's so _wrong_ about what's causing her trouble.

Obviously, she's not the only one to think so, because all that Chat Noir's body language seems to express is bewilderment.

"You really think the costume is what makes you a hero? It's not. That's all you – you could give this costume to any other girl in Paris – in the world even – and none of them would compare to you or even do the job half as well as you do. It's not a matter of powers, it's a matter of who you are, inside. You're a hero, Ladybug or no Ladybug, so don't ever think otherwise."

"Well, if that's true for me, then it's the same for you. You're a hero too, Chat Noir," Marinette replies, her words somehow so convincing that Alya would have believed it just from hearing them if she hadn't already known this.

"Aww, my Lady flatters me, but…"

"No buts. And…" Alya can see her friend take a deep breath, and her heart starts beating so strongly in excitement that it feels like it's about to burst from her chest.

Seconds later, the light from the transformation fades away, revealing Marinette tucking something away in her handbag. "I guess you should call me Marinette when we're alone."

Considering that Chat was the one who made the first move, it's kind of ironic that he now looks about to bolt, but Alya understands – Marinette's reveal was no surprise to him, he had already guessed who she was, while as far as he knows, Marinette has no idea who he is.

"Then I suppose it's time to let the cat out of the bag", he says, and for the second time today Alya has to avert her eyes to avoid being blinded by the bright light that comes with her friends' return to non-heroic outfits.

Contrary to what Alya had half-expected, Marinette doesn't faint. She just stares, gaping, and blushes hard.

"A-A-Adrien?" She finally stutters out.

"Surprise?" Adrien replies, shuffling nervously on his feet.

Behind her bush, Alya feels like squealing in happiness – finally! They know! Now if they could only find a way to tell each other that they're in love, Alya's life work (well, one of them at least) would be complete.

The rest of the conversation is spoken too softly for Alya to hear – she doesn't know if it's because they've apparently realized that they could be overheard, or if their conversation is just one of those, one of those conversations that can only be spoken quietly – and all she can do is watch.

After what seems like the longest minutes of her life, Alya sees Marinette grab Adrien's hand, blush, and start dragging him away.

 _(she doesn't let go of his hand though, and neither does Adrien)_

 **.x.**

Two hours later, Alya gets a frantic call from Marinette, who announces, in between squeals of happiness, that she's now dating Adrien.

They stay on the phone until it's nearly midnight, and the next morning Marinette and Adrien show up hand in hand.

Nino elbows her in the side when he sees this. "How did you do it?"

"I didn't," Alya laughs. "They figured it out on their own."

Nino sends her a disbelieving look. "Really?"

"Yep. Who'd have thought, right?"

"Certainly not me. I can't believe we wasted all this time on getting them together only to have them do it on their own," he sighs, somewhat wistful.

Alya laces her fingers with his and leans against him. "Well, I wouldn't say those times were completely wasted…"

"No, you're right, they weren't."

His smile is soft and besotted, and Alya's heart swells in her chest.

Nothing can ruin this day for her.

 _(which is of course why another akuma attack happens)_

 _(but that's another story)_


End file.
